1. Field
The following description relates generally to wireless network communications, and more particularly to utilizing a relay in wireless communications.
2. Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as, for example, voice, data, and so on. Typical wireless communication systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing available system resources (e.g., bandwidth, transmit power, . . . ). Examples of such multiple-access systems may include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems, and the like. Additionally, the systems can conform to specifications such as third generation partnership project (3GPP), 3GPP long term evolution (LTE), ultra mobile broadband (UMB), evolution data optimized (EV-DO), etc.
Generally, wireless multiple-access communication systems may simultaneously support communication for multiple mobile devices. Each mobile device may communicate with one or more base stations via transmissions on forward and reverse links. The forward link (or downlink) refers to the communication link from base stations to mobile devices, and the reverse link (or uplink) refers to the communication link from mobile devices to base stations. Further, communications between mobile devices and base stations may be established via single-input single-output (SISO) systems, multiple-input single-output (MISO) systems, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, and so forth. In addition, mobile devices can communicate with other mobile devices (and/or base stations with other base stations) in peer-to-peer wireless network configurations.
In addition, relays can be provided to augment network coverage and capacity. For example, relays generally receive signals from a base station, and transmit the received signals to improve signal quality with a combined signal received at a device. Some relays can operate without a physical cell identifier, and thus do not require separate control data resources with a device to relay base station communications (e.g., a type II relay in LTE). In this example, the device communicates control data with the base station, but not the relay, while receiving user-plane data from both. This can result in incongruity between channel quality for control and user-plane data. In one example, the device can experience a high quality user-plane data channel and a low-quality control channel where the device is near the relay, but further from the base station. This can prevent the device from decoding the user-plane data channel, in one example, where control channel quality is below a threshold level. Moreover, for example, the device can be near a neighboring base station that interferes with the serving base station, which can further decrease hearability of the control channel from the serving base station.